Review: Black Iris Brewery – Music and the Mash Tun

 

Like all good ideas it’s a simple one – a brewery opens its doors. During the day, there’s a beer festival and then at night there’s a gig. And it worked really well. I’m Not From London put on four bands, Minatore, The Damn Heavy, Mannequin and Crosa Rosa at the Black Iris Brewery.
 
Opening the show were Minatore, a two-piece from Notts and Derbyshire. They have that early ’90s grunge sound fuelled by the energy and exuberance of youth. On second are The Damn Heavy (yes, that’s their name, yes, it is an awful name) The four-piece are pretty heavy though with a ’70s kind of sound – imagine Deep Purple without the keyboard.

Next up were Mannequin from Nottingham. The three-piece were again on the grunge-y side of rock, they featured a lot more guitar noodling.

 

 

Finally, the headliners Crosa Rosa, also from Nottingham. While their music is also redolent of early grunge, the generous use of various guitar effect pedals undercuts it all with a slight psychedelic edge.

All of the bands were a little bit heavier than the music that I usually listen to so I’m a little loathe to give proper “these were amazing/not amazing” reviews due to my ignorance of the genre. However, the night was still great and it was easy to see how good a band Crosa Rosa were. In fact musically, my favourite part of the evening was Josh III, the DJ who was spinning quite a bit of garage rock. The venue was brilliant though, the bands playing in front of the beer vats looked great and the acoustics were spot-on. I’d definitely recommend going to see a gig in a brewery.

The next I’m Not From London/Black Iris Brewery event takes place on July 30th with the beer festival running from midday to 5pm and the live music running from 6pm to midnight. For more information check out the Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/events/1753541434860353/

 

By Gav Squire

@GavSquires